Chapter 13: A mess

POV Kane

As I look over the footage of V coming out of her wrecked car, I send the footage to my employer and check the progress that MaxTac has made on the cyberpsychos. I'm controlling one of the psychos, as I wanted it to start a whole incident mainly involving Kang Tao and Arasaka, as both don't like to be in the spotlight when it comes to cyberpsychos. The psycho I'm controlling is a full Kang Tao fanatic. Even though there is better chrome on the street, he has used everything from Kang Tao, going so far as to have parts of his brain made by Kang Tao. He's a rich second-generation, if you didn't guess, who wanted to prove his loyalties to the company, only to become a liability.

Anyhow, Chen Mo is no longer here; all that's left is my puppet. Let me say, he has quite the menagerie of weapons. His whole chrome specs are suited for industrial espionage with a side of demolition, making him a walking weapons platform. I had taken him out of the base earlier by using some simple demons targeted at granting control of the facility. With him now out in the open, I began by targeting the White Claws, quickly turning their weapons against them.

Now onto the main event. I've had my puppet set up a multitude of automatic rocket mines. These things are meant for ambushes and have a massive explosive warhead that forms a cone capable of piercing the strongest alloys. The main goal of setting up these mines is to mess up the Kang Tao convoy by knocking out the first three vehicles and the two at the back, trapping four vehicles in the kill zone where the main delegation officers are. There's also a hard-line connection to the Kang Tao network in Night City.

The reason I mention the link is because the main thing that drives corporations is profit, and investors are the reason why such 'Neo-capitalism' is allowed. So, I will target all the investors and proprietors of Kang Tao in Night City and use some of the remaining ASAT weapons to target their satellite network. Along with their rather lacklustre defences going down, this will allow any netrunner to access the systems of Kang Tao.

All that's left to do is wait for the convoy.

General POV

In the midnight of Night City, an armoured convoy seems to be going ahead at full steam. At the head are three massive armoured vehicles with drone escorts providing cover from any rocket threats and serving an anti-infantry purpose. In this subtle calm, there is a rumbling, then an explosion.

All at once, the vehicles are targeted in some way. The first and second armoured vehicles in the front are knocked out immediately. The drones on the sides immediately turn around and target the gunners that popped out of the middle vehicles to engage.

The third vehicle in the front is quickly disposed of when a small drone packed with explosives is driven into the wide-open hatch, causing the ammunition inside to cook off. The people inside aren't even able to scream as the whole vehicle juts off to the side, and a tall figure dislodges itself from the vehicle.

Only to then be met by a truck trying to ram him, he smilingly teleports to the side, opens his arm, and a row of small dart missiles target the occupants, leaving the truck speeding ahead with its driver and occupants all dead.

The person then turns to the remaining vehicles. With the remaining one vehicle charging, trying to get past, he jumps and breaks the hatch off the floating Militech basilisk, tossing a bundle of C12 inside. He jumps off the now turning basilisk, which explodes behind him as he walks to the now erratic car that looks like a limousine. Its driver is shot in the head, and the bodyguards are already foaming at the mouth, now opening the door for the puppet to look at the main man himself.

Messiah, the person behind this, moves forward, taking a good look at the person who set this all into motion, Jaw-Long, or in English, his name means "like a dragon." Though that said, the dragon should have died when he was dragged out of the car, kicking and screaming, even as his chrome limbs failed him.

Forced to his knees as his bodyguards became motionless, he looks at the figure in front of him, a fellow countryman. Yet here he is, on his knees with a smart weapon at his head, preparing for the worst. He closes his eyes, wishing he was going to die then.

The monster begins to turn its hand with such agility, its tentacle-like appendages lock into his cyberdeck and quickly begin to target his codes for the Kang Tao network in Night City. A look of horror comes across Long's face as his whole being is used as a meat computer, and the quick connection allows Messiah to begin his plans.

POV Nix

Something serious is going on. The net has been acting weird lately. Others might not have noticed, but it feels like things are slower. This happens when a person is out in the Badlands, where no net connection is permanent, but cities are fast connection-wise. This is a major thing. As I began to try and trace its origin, I uncovered a hidden domain where I saw a person. They had a mask and dreadlocks that seemed to be made out of data.

[Image of what Messiah looks like in the net]

Nix: "Who are you, and why are you taking so much of the connection for Night City?" I said in my menacing programmed voice meant to instil a sense of fear, along with demons inside of it to feel his ice. Before I could even register the demons back, they were gone.

A sigh is all I hear as the figure looked down from where he was staring at what looked like a view of space, where he overlooked satellites—something that should have been highly secretive—as well as what looked like flight paths of something.

…: "Ah, a visitor. Though it is something to be proud of for finding the slight connection usage, I would not have expected any worse from one who Rogue favours. As for little old me, just breaking the legs of a corporation and possibly starting a fifth corporate war," they said without much enthusiasm. As they then sent over to me what they were doing, I looked through all the connections they were managing. It had to be at least 67 petabytes a second—something that even corps have full-on facilities dedicated to processing 12 petabytes.

Then the 'flight paths' are calculations for a total destruction of Kang Tao space infrastructure using hacked ASAT missiles. They had upgraded their software to make them far more effective. Thus, a whole wave of missiles numbering at least 1500 were in the sky currently as he was fending off numerous Kang Tao net runners.

They then began using their demons as they targeted all Kang Tao satellite connections before the missiles hit and began uploading demons to every employee of Kang Tao. As well as using Kang Tao's connection to main China, he unlocked the great data wall of China and began overloading Chinese servers as well as posting all data of China onto the net. Not before leaving, he set his name in the code of the very net, 'Messiah was here.'

Messiah: "Do tell the dear Rogue if I have made myself into a legend, will you."

They left before I could respond and watch on in both admiration and horror. This was a mess that was goanna rival the Data Crash.

There was nothing I could do, so I logged out of the net and walked out from the back of the Afterlife and saw Rogue. As soon as she saw my face, she went serious as the usual calm of the Afterlife changed in an instant.

Rogue: "Nix, what's happening for your face to be like that?" she asked with the tone of an order in her command. I just walked to the bar and asked for drinks and then laughed out loud.

Nix: "A crazy motherfucker on the lanes of your Johnny just did something to Kang Tao, and oh boy, I'm not drunk enough for this."